Category: Folky Fridays

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Fingerstyle Folky Fridays

Folky Fridays #43 – Comparing arrangement options in DADGAD and EADGBE

In this week’s Folky Fridays free online guitar lesson live stream from Folk Friend I will be responding to a request from channel regular Brian who wanted to have a look at the slip jig Fig For A Kiss and examine how arrangement options would differ between standard EADGBE tuning and DADGAD.

Fig For A Kiss is included in my collection of 10 arrangements of classic Irish tunes for fingerstyle guitar in standard tuning, which you can buy as an e-book or paperback at the link below. It comes with a playing guide for each tune, a short history of its provenance and author if known, chord diagrams, MIDI downloads, audio demonstrations and lots more! Get it here.

I recently finished writing a complete Beginner’s Guide To Celtic DADGAD Accompaniment! You can find it here.

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Folky Fridays

Folky Fridays #49 – What makes Irish / Scottish music sound Celtic?!

In today’s Folky Fridays free Celtic guitar lesson livestream, I wanted to discuss my thoughts on what makes Celtic music sound Celtic, and how it’s different from more modern music or folk music from other cultures. I’ll also be relating this to guitar backing as much as possible and doing my best to show you how melodic conventions can influence your guitar accompaniment choices for traditional/ folk music.

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Folky Fridays

Folky Fridays #48 – A complete approach to guitar accompaniment for Swallowtail jig

In this week’s Folky Fridays free online guitar lesson live stream from Folk Friend I will be showing you how you can pick chords for the most popular Irish tune on Youtube, Swallowtail Jig. I’ll show you how to pick simple chords by ear, how to use substitutions to make them more interesting and then loads of cool variants and techniques to make your chords more interesting!

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Folky Fridays

Folky Fridays #47 – “Power chords” for super easy Irish guitar accompaniment!

In this week’s Folky Fridays free online guitar lesson live stream from Folk Friend I will be showing you how you can use the humble “power chord” as a super easy move-able chord option for Irish, Scottish and general Celtic guitar accompaniment in loads of different keys! If you’re looking for an easy way to super charge your chord armoury with just one shape then this will suit you down to the ground!

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DADGAD Folky Fridays

Folky Fridays #42 – A “by ear” approach to DADGAD backing for folk tunes with almost no theory!

In this week’s Folky Fridays free online guitar lesson live stream from Folk Friend I will be showing you a completely “by ear” approach to DADGAD backing, with almost no music theory! We’ll be covering tunes in the common keys of D major, G major, E minor and A minor and I’ll be showing you some simple approaches to make chord progressions which follow the melody, tune your ear in and sound absolutely great! We’ll be looking at bass runs and replicating the melody at the top end of your chords too.

I recently finished writing a complete Beginner’s Guide To Celtic DADGAD Accompaniment! You can find it here.

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Fingerstyle Folky Fridays

Folky Fridays #41 – 1 hour to arrange McMahon’s Reel for Irish Fingerstyle guitar in DADGAD tuning

In this week’s Folky Fridays free online guitar lesson live stream from Folk Friend I will be attempting to write a full DADGAD fingerstyle arrangement of a classic Irish reel called McMahon’s in under an hour!

The completed tab is now available as a free download! Get your copy here.

I also wrote a complete book of 10 DADGAD arrangements of classic Irish tunes, which you can buy as an e-book or paperback by clicking here. It comes with a playing guide for each tune, a short history of its provenance and author if known, chord diagrams, MIDI downloads and lots more!

I recently finished writing a complete Beginner’s Guide To Celtic DADGAD Accompaniment! You can find it here.

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Folky Fridays Jazz chord theory

Folky Fridays #40 – What makes a great sounding Irish guitar chord progression?

In this week’s Folky Fridays free online guitar lesson live stream from Folk Friend I will be running you through a few features of great sounding chord progressions.

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Folky Fridays

Folky Fridays #39 – How to to make your trad backing sound like Django Reinhardt!

In this week’s Folky Fridays free online guitar lesson live stream from Folk Friend I will be showing you the formula you can use to make any tune or song sound like gypsy jazz! This technique is a lot of fun and can be easily applied to any song or tune (traditional or otherwise!) – all it needs is a bit of music theory knowledge and a few new chord shapes!

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Folky Fridays

Folky Fridays #38 – How to use chord inversions and pedal points for Celtic / Irish guitar backing

In this week’s Folky Fridays free online guitar lesson live stream from Folk Friend I will be showing you some interesting features of chord inversions, and how to use pedal points to build suspense in your chord progressions. This is not something I touch upon often on the channel but can have some really interesting and unexpected results in all sorts of folk guitar contexts so don’t miss it!

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Folky Fridays

Folky Fridays #37 – How to make your Irish guitar practice more efficient in 2021

This year I want you to cut out the noodling daydreaming and general twiddlage which seems to afflict all guitarists, and become the very best Celtic guitarist you can be! With this in mind, in today’s free guitar lesson live stream I’ll be running you through my top tips for how to make your guitar practice time more productive. I’ll also be showing you some of my favourite exercises for ear training and quickly memorising music theory and demonstrating the Folk Friend Practice Diary, which will help you to focus in on what you need to do to achieve your guitar goals (along with containing loads of helpful diagrams and advice!).

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